by Whyte, Jack
When he spotted me, he came directly to where I stood and grasped me by both shoulders, looking straight into my eyes. "May God be with you, Clothar, my son," he said. "I will be thinking of you and praying for you every day, that your mission to Merlyn Britannicus might bear fruit and bring great blessings to the people and the land of Britain. Go in peace." He kissed me on the forehead and began to turn away, then hesitated and turned back to me, his smile widening. "I wore that armour for many years and during many campaigns, you know, and only ever once did I mar it with a scratch. Try to treat it with the same care, will you? No Saxon axe will cut through it, but a hard-swung axe could make a fearful dent in it, and in you for that matter, so promise me, if you will, that you will stay well away from hard-swung axes."
"I will, Father," I said, trying to smile despite the swelling lump in my throat. "I will. God bless you."
He touched me again, cupping my cheek in his hand. "He already has, Clothar. Walk in His light, my son." And with that he was gone, swallowed up by the crowd.
Later that morning, when the cavalcade was gone and the crowd had dispersed, I went looking for Tiberias Cato and found him, not surprisingly, in the stables among his beloved animals. He waved me to him as soon as I entered the main gates of the horse yards, and when I reached his side he nodded a silent greeting and pointed to a small group of horses in an enclosure close by.
"That one," he said. "The bay. That's the mount I picked out for the boy Bors. As your servant, he'll have no need of a prancing war horse, but that animal will be perfect for him. It's sound and solid, and what it lacks in beauty it makes up for in willingness. The beast has a tractable nature, with enough strength and stamina to do anything he will require of it. It will carry him and a full load all day and every day if that's what is required. The other one behind it, the gray gelding, is his packhorse. Same attributes, same stamina, merely less sweet to look upon. Have you decided yet to take him with you?"
"Bors? No, I haven't even met him yet and know nothing about him other than what Bishop Germanus told me last night."
"What more do you need to know, then? If Germanus vouches for him, how can you doubt the lad?"
"I don't. I was merely pointing out that I have not met him yet. I think I may remember his face, but I won't know until I see him."
"Well, that's easily remedied." He shouted to a small boy who was cleaning out a stall behind him, bidding him drop what he was doing and run to the school, where he was to find Brother Michael's class and ask the teacher to send the boy Bors back here to meet with Magister Cato. When the lad had scampered away, he turned back to me.
"I took the liberty of picking mounts for you and your companion Perceval, too. Didn't think you would object to that. Come, I'll show them to you." As he led me back to where he had sequestered four horses for our use, he continued talking about Bors.
"He was always a bright student, right from the outset, and I knew that from the first day I set eyes on him, but everything about him's different now, and none of the changes have improved him. Mind you, there's a part of me that can't really blame the lad, because he's been through more misfortunes than many a grown man goes through in a lifetime. But still, enough is enough.
"It started with the news of his parents' death. That would normally be enough to bring down any man—I mean, it happens to all of us, but none of us are ever ready for it when it occurs and it's always devastating. But then, hard on the heels of the first one, comes a second messenger, this one bearing the tidings that the remainder of his family—his entire clan—had been wiped out by the pestilence, along with three-quarters of the population of the small town they had lived in."
Cato sniffed loudly and braced one of his feet against the bottom rail of the paddock. "That second message is what did the boy in. Until it arrived, he had been grief-stricken but very normal in how he reacted and behaved. After he heard the news about the rest of his family being dead too, however, he changed completely. He grew bitter and resentful, and noisy in his bitterness. He started questioning the very existence of God, demanding to know how anyone could believe in the goodness of any God who could allow such things to happen.
"Of course, that kind of talk was not too well received here, as you can imagine, and several of his teachers began to lean on him, but that only made him worse. He stopped working at his lessons altogether and went from being a bright student and a positive influence among the other boys to being a bitter, cynical recluse who never had a good word to say about anything or anyone."
"So how did the other boys react to that?" I asked, and Cato looked at me with an expression of rueful skepticism that I remembered well.
"Not very well," he said. "Some of them even joined forces to show him the error of his ways. But that was a waste of time, and often painful. Bors is a big lad for his age, and he's always been able to hold his own against lads twice his size. He thrashed a couple of them very badly, and the others soon decided to leave him alone to stew in his misery.
"Germanus is the only one who refused to give up on the boy. I gave him up us unredeemable months ago, but the bishop chewed on my ear for days and weeks until I decided to give the boy another chance. I did, and I kept working with the boy, biting my tongue every day and keeping what I really thought of him to myself. But nothing came of my efforts until a few days ago, and even then there wasn't much to see. But whatever credit there is for that goes to Germanus. I don't know what he did with the boy, or how he penetrated the tortoise shell the lad has built about himself, but in the past couple of days young Bors has become more . . . tractable. Now that's a word I can't remember ever using before to describe a person. It's a word I generally save for horses, obedient, biddable horses, but it fits what's happening with Bors. I wouldn't say the boy's more approachable, because he really isn't, but there's something happening inside that enclosed little world he lives in. Anyway, you'll be able to judge for yourself soon enough. He should be here directly."
By then we had been standing for some time looking at the four magnificent animals in the fenced enclosure he had led me to. All four were bays, of varying degrees of color, and all four were superb. Cato pointed out two in particular, one of them dark enough to be a chestnut, with only a single blaze of white on his forehead, the other with four white fetlocks. "Those two are yours," he said. "There's not much to choose from in the way of differences among the four of them, but those two would be my personal choice were I the one riding off into the unknown on them."
"So be it, then, Magister. They shall be mine."
"Good. They're easy to identify as well, which does no harm. Here comes the boy."
I recognized him immediately, and instantly wondered why I had not been able to recall him by name before. He had been a junior Mend and something of a protégé to my own Mend Stephan Lorco, following Lorco around for his first two years in the school in a condition resembling hero worship. He had already closed the outer gate behind him and was walking across the main yard of the stables, still several hundred paces from where we stood, and something in his gait, in the way he held himself, immediately caught my attention, making me look more closely to identify what it was that had struck me as being unusual, and before he had halved the distance separating us I knew what it was. He had not seen us yet, standing as we were in the shade of a low hut at the rear of the paddocks, with several lines of fencing between him and us, but there was a lack of diffidence in his walk that was unusual to the point of appearing arrogant.
Summoned from the classroom to meet with the formidable Magister Cato, he should have been filled with trepidation, wondering what he had done to engender such a command. Any other boy in the school would have been recognizably afraid. I would have been, in his place. But this boy showed no such concern. He walked confidently and purposefully, head erect, shoulders back, his pace steady and unhurried.
"He's not afraid," I said.
"No, not that one." Cato's voice was quiet. "A year ago he would have been, but
now he doesn't care. Grown up before his time, poor little catamite. There's nothing I could say to him or do to him now that would make him feel worse, or even better, which is worse. That's why he needs to go with you, if you'll have him. He's a man now, in his grief, but his body and the rest of him are still in boyhood. Those parts need to grow now, too, but in a man's world, not a boy's school. Bors! Over here."
The boy turned towards the sound of Cato's voice and came straight to where we stood. I saw him recognize me and frown slightly.
"Magister," he said, looking at Cato and ignoring me.
Now that he was beside me I could see how much he had grown and aged in the time since I had last seen him. He was almost as tall as me now and half a head taller than the diminutive Tiberias Cato, and he was solidly made, with wide, strong shoulders, a deep, broad chest and long, clean-lined arms and legs that rippled with well-toned, sharply defined muscles. His face was unblemished and attractive, albeit unsmiling, and his dark eyes held a guarded, reserved look.
It was a measure of my own growth in the months that had passed recently, however, that I saw him as a boy, although the fact that I was looking at him through a man's eyes did not occur to me until much later.
"You sent for me, Magister."
"Aye, I did," Cato growled. "And I thank you for coming." He ignored the slight quirk of the eyebrow that was the boy's only response to his sarcasm. "You know Clothar of Benwick, I am sure. He is visiting us for a short time before leaving on a mission set for him by Bishop Germanus."
Bors looked directly at me for the first time and inclined his head courteously. "Of course, I remember him well," he said, and then to me: "I was there when Stephan Lorco fought you for the Magister's spatha. You should have won."
"I have it here," I said, tilting the hilt forward for him to see. "I was with Stephan when he was killed in an ambush, and I carry the spatha and use it now in remembrance of him."
"Aye, that's right, Lorco is dead, too, isn't he?"
I was left speechless, not so much by the comment as by the tone in which it had been uttered, but Cato had been ready for something of the sort, I think, because his response was immediate.
"Aye, that's right, as you say, he is. But Stephan Lorco was killed in battle, doing what he had been trained to do!"
That was not quite true, for poor Lorco had not even had time to see that we were being attacked, but I kept silent, watching for Bors's response. He said nothing, however, and his only movement was to bite gently at his upper lip, but I clearly saw the pain that filled his eyes. Cato saw it too, I believe, for he spoke again in a gentler voice.
"Anyway, as I said, Clothar is leaving on a mission for Bishop Germanus. It will be dangerous, and Clothar is young to be entrusted with such responsibility, but the bishop chose him above all others for the task because he has great faith in this young man, as do we all. Since leaving here, he has fought in a short but brutal civil war in his own lands in Benwick, and has distinguished himself greatly. And he, too, knows what it is to lose close family, his parents first, and then his guardian and two brothers in this recent war. Bishop Germanus thought it might be good for you to speak with him while he is here. I thought so too, which is why I sent for you. I know not what he might say to you, or even if you wish to speak with him, but here he is, and here you are, and I will leave the two of you alone."
"Wait, Magister, if you would" I said. He had been on the point of turning away but he stopped and looked at me with raised eyebrows. "I would like you to hear what I have to say to Bors." The boy's face was now set in resentment. I am not normally impulsive, but I knew I had to speak now what was in my mind and heart, and what was there was newly born in me, completely unconsidered and spontaneous.
'There is a man in Britain, Bors, two or three years older than I am and therefore less than five years older than you, who will soon be crowned as King of Britannia. His name is Arthur—Arthur Pendragon—and I have been told by the bishop himself that the man commands an army of heavy cavalry the like of which has not been seen since the time of Alexander the Great. Britain is being invaded as I speak, by a tide of different peoples from across the seas to the east of the island. The hordes are drawn to Britain's wealth since the Roman legions left the island two score years ago.
All of them are pagans, and they seem set to destroy God's Church in Britain and to wipe out all signs of Christianity in the path of their conquest. Arthur Pendragon's army is the only force that can gainsay them and hurl them back to where they came from.
"His teacher, a wise and powerful man called Merlyn Britannicus, is a beloved friend to Germanus, and has shaped the new King in much the same fashion as Germanus has trained us, in compassion and decency, but also in military strength, dedicated to the preservation of the laws of God and man and using the full force of his military power to back his convictions. I am to leave for Britain within the days ahead, carrying missives to Merlyn and to the Christian bishops of the land, bidding them rally to Arthur's support and to mobilize the earthly powers of God's Church on behalf of the new king."
I drew a deep breath, not daring to look at Cato, and continued. "I will deliver my dispatches to Merlyn, and to the bishops, in accordance with the wishes of Bishop Germanus, and then I may return home to Gaul. But it is in my mind that I like the notion of this new King and his campaign to save his country from the pagan hordes, and so I may stay there, to ride and fight with him, so be it that I like the man as much after meeting him as I now enjoy the idea of what he represents. I'll take you with me, if the idea pleases you. Will you come?"
The boy's eyes were wide with disbelief. Finally, when he realized that we were both gazing at him, waiting for an answer, he gulped breathlessly, then whispered, "Do you—?" He swallowed, but when he spoke again his voice broke into a squeak on the first utterance—quickly mastered, but nonetheless indicative of his youth. "Do you mean that?"
I glanced at Cato, whose fierce, bushy eyebrows were now riding high on his forehead. "Do I mean that? Mark this, Bors, and mark it clearly. If you do come with me, it will be as my assistant— an extension of your training under my care. I will be the master, you the apprentice. You will not travel as a warrior, or as the equal to myself or my companion Perceval, although in time you may develop into both. For the time being, however, your duties will be onerous and will revolve purely around my needs—my weapons, my armour, my horses, my provisions and any other requirements I might have. In return, I will be your guardian and your trainer and teacher, in trust for the faith placed in me by Bishop Germanus and Magister Cato here. But I warn you, I will be your master, until such time as you have proved to me that you have progressed beyond the point of needing to be taught.
"And I warn you, too, incidentally, that you will find few people who will tell you that questioning your master's truthfulness is a beneficial or clever way to set out upon such a relationship. This one time, however, I will ignore the slur. Yes, I mean what I say, and you still have not answered me. Will you come with me to Britain?"
His eyes had filled with tears and for a moment I thought they would spill over, but he blinked them fiercely away and turned apprehensively to Cato, who met his question with an upraised hand. "Don't come to me for guidance. As the man says, he will take you in trust for Bishop Germanus and myself. If you want to go, I have a horse picked out for you."
The young man who walked away from us a short time later still walked with purpose and determination, but there was an air of excitement about him that had not been there when he first arrived.
'That was . . . sudden," Cato said when we were alone again. "Unexpected, but well done, I think. I have the feeling you will not regret your impulsiveness."
5
With Bors dismissed, Cato suggested that I follow him. I never could listen to a suggestion from Cato without hearing an order, and so I rushed to keep up as he walked back towards the camp.
"That spatha was never meant to be the prize, you know," he
growled. "I suppose I would have gotten around to giving it to you eventually, but I had something else in mind that afternoon. Then you went and fouled everything up by letting Lorco win."
He led me into a low hut and into the tiny cubicle that served him as both home and workspace. There he pointed towards the farthest corner, where two sheaves of spears were stored.
"Those are what you should have won that day," he said. "Won as a prize, upon the field, they would have been a trophy and would have saved me from the taint of playing favorites by giving them all to you. Now there's no need to fret over any of that. They're yours, a gift. Do you remember how to use them?"
I certainly did. He had brought these strangely strong yet lightweight, delicately shafted spears with him from the land where he had been raised, the land of the Smoke People. Each spear was tipped with a long, tapering, triangular metal head that came to a needle point and could, when well thrown, penetrate even the finest ring mail. The shafts were of the strange sectional and intensely hard wood that Cato called bambu. They were wondrous weapons, their slight weight and utter straightness permitting them to be thrown with great accuracy by anyone who had perfected the tricks of using them. On its most elemental level, the technique required an aptitude for wrapping the shaft quickly in the coils of a thin leather thong. With the thong gripped in the throwing hand, the hurled spear would begin to spin as the thong unwound, adding to its velocity and force. It was a wonderful weapon, and unique.
"They weigh next to nothing, but their length makes them awkward to transport," Cato said. "But that's why I went to such trouble choosing the boy's two horses. You can pack one quiver of these on each side of the packhorse and stow the rest of its load around them. You have two bundles there, with just over a score of spears in each. Might seem like a lot, particularly when you're traveling with them, but it isn't, believe me. The things are irreplaceable, so every one you lose or break takes you one step closer to having none."